Normally, I hate the hiccups. They make me feel hostage to my body and heavily interrupted. Try as I might to hold my breath and then swallow the air (like I was told to when I was a young’un), once I get them, they can be annoyingly persistent.
But I wasn’t irritated by them yesterday. I was mesmerized. …Because they were coming from inside my belly.
As I laid on my side for a 10 minute break at work, I could feel Bennett nudging and flailing around in there. Then I noticed – and I’m convinced that I wouldn’t have if I hadn’t been in a still, quiet place – that once particular sensation was rhythmic. As I paid a little more attention, it dawned on me that this couldn’t possibly be his usual movement because he never moves to a consistent beat.
Awww, Bennett. You’ve got the hiccups! Do you hate them as much as I do? Poor thing.
This was clearly worth a mention on Square Piece. So for a few more minutes, I tried figuring out how to articulate exactly what it feels like to be carrying someone else’s hiccups inside of you. Several analogies were considered, but this is the one that truly feels most accurate to me:
(You know I’m about to get very specific, right?)
Have you ever cracked your knuckles? Your back? Your fingers? Your toes? Do you know how it feels to work just a touch harder at getting the big toe or perhaps the thumb to pop? If you can imagine transporting the sensation of that pop deep within you and as low as your underwear line, that’s the sort of reverberation you feel with a baby’s hiccup. To me, his hiccups definitely didn’t feel as much like movement as they did like a strong *Pop!* of a knuckle… from a place where there are no knuckles.
And the pace? You know how some people count by saying, “One, Mississippi, two, Mississippi, three, Mississippi…”? For me it was more like this:
*hiccup that felt like a big toe popping deep in my bowels*
Alabama…
Alaska…
Arizona…
Arkansas…
*hiccup that felt like a big toe popping deep in my bowels*
Alabama…
Alaska…
Arizona…
Arkansas…
*hiccup that felt like a big toe popping deep in my bowels*
Alabama…
Alaska…
Arizona…
Arkansas…
And so on.
I’m so glad to have an avenue to keep track of these sort of things. Thanks for tracking with me!
Wohoo! Even though they can be annoying they are awesome! My doc told me it meant baby was displaying a super healthy respitory system. Plus to know a human life that’s so tiny gets hiccups too…adorable. I love you friend and this awesome beautiful place!
Once Donovan started having hiccups he had them EVERY day. It was the neatest sensation. 🙂
Hiccups are so cool. I sometimes get them for too long. Your body is trying to regulate your breathing for you because of something you did.
I sometimes get them in the morning when I jump out of bed too fast and move around. Because my heart rate is rising, it’s out of sync for a moment with my breathing, which is usually still low. The opposite may have happened to Bennett when you laid down to relax .
With this in mind, you can help re-regulate your breathing by doing an —oooollllllld— yoga exercise.
Breath in slowly (4 count), hold it (4 count), breathe out (4 count), relax (4 count), repeat. It’s harder than it sounds during hiccups, but usually more effective than all the other funny hiccup remedies… And I’ve tried them all. My favorite as a kid was the big spoonful of sugar with a little water drizzled in it from the sink. Yum!
xoxo
Worth a try!
I have to believe that hiccups dont bother babies, as much as us anyway. Neither of my babies seemed to care that they had them.
Once born, all 3 of mine got them when their little tummies were full of milk…my guess is he was head down yesterday if thats how low u felt them, i heart baby in the belly hiccups!!!
I thought the same thing about him being head down.
Awwww poor lil’ guy. I guess I would hiccup too if I was surrounded by fluids. 😛
How wonderful. Make sure you tell Bennett about Kennera’s cure. 🙂
Noelle had the hiccups in utero while I was in for a fetal heartbeat monitoring (too many braxton-hicks) and the sound was sooo loud next to the thub-thub-thub of the heartbeat…nurses kept popping there heads in my room to see what was making so much noise!
Ok, I have to admit that I had no idea that babies could get hiccups in your belly…so when Ty first got the hiccups I spent several minutes FREAKING OUT because I didn’t know what was going on. I knew it wasn’t my heart beat, and it was too slow to be his… I am a little embarrassed to tell this story 😉
Don’t be. If SO MANY people hadn’t asked, “Have you felt him hiccup yet?” I’d never have known either.